Thursday, July 20, 2017

Happy you don’t believe it exists

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville keeps making the point that the GOP is profoundly anti-democracy. A couple of her recent examples:

I’ve been saying the GOP acts like it won’t be accountable to voters in 2018. Part of that effort is badly misnamed Commission on Election Integrity led by Kris Kobach. Many states are now introducing legislation to demand stringent requirements on proof of citizenship. At the national level Kobach wants to change the National Voter Registration Act, which pushed states to make registration easier. Kobach’s desired change is to say that proof of citizenship requirements are permitted. He requested this change – the day after the nasty guy was elected.

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a corporate-funded group to draft models of extremely conservative bills and urge state legislators to pass them. Coming up on their agenda: whether to support a proposal to overturn the 17th Amendment to the Constitution. This is the one that says voters elect federal senators. What ALEC is proposing is that state legislatures elect senators. Their reason is the current system “disenfranchises the States” – at the expense of voters in those states.

If this proposal got anywhere Michigan would be affected. The state legislature is firmly in GOP hands due to gerrymandering. But the senators are voted by everyone in the state and have been reliably Democrats. There are 32 state legislators controlled by the GOP. With the 17th overturned the balance n the Senate would be at least 64-36 in favor of the GOP and could reach 67 GOP seats, enough to power through more Constitutional amendments (such as demanding a balanced budget – and we know what programs get chopped). Having legislatures appoint senators also means the end of any moderates.

In response to this McEwan issued a Twitter storm. Don’t believe how anti-democracy the GOP is? She reviews the evidence, then tweets:

It has been a very long and very sinister campaign. And trust that they’re happy to hear that you don’t believe it even exists.